Three Tales of Lifelong Learning as a Travelling Idea: Diffusion, Mimesis, and Translation

Abstract

Variants of lifelong learning have been discussed internationally since the early 1960s, yet cross-national adoption and implementation remained limited. It was only in the 1990s that the concept saw worldwide diffusion across countries and international organizations. Such diffusion is not to be confused with institutionalization and tells us little about how actors such as nation-states adopt lifelong learning in their specific contexts. Three scenarios of policy adoption and institutionalization have been widely discussed in the literature. One is diffusion, i. e., the formal (and often decoupled) adoption of ideas, the second scenario is mimesis, i. e., the unfiltered uptake of ideas, and, third, translation which describes a more complex process of partial and selective adoption. This contribution discusses these three theoretical perspectives and presents empirical data, both historical and more recent, on the diffusion, mimesis and translation of lifelong learning in a global perspective.